“If a generation’s shadow is two phases of life older (or younger), then a generation’s matching archetype is four phases of life older (or younger). The affinity between grandparent and grandchild is universal folk wisdom—as is the tension between parent and child. Lewis Mumford sums up the pattern nicely: “The commonest axiom of history is that every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.”

What these archetypal myths illustrate is this: Your generation isn’t like the
generation that shaped you, but it has much in common with the generation
that shaped the generation that shaped you. Or, put another way: Archetypes
do not create archetypes like themselves; instead, they create the shadows of
archetypes like themselves.”